BIB2014 is a 3-credit undergraduate course in Building Pathology designed to help students understand building defects, material behaviour, agents of deterioration, inspection processes, and condition reporting in line with RICS and RISM expectations . The course learning outcomes require students to determine materials, defects, and agents of deterioration, report building defects based on inspection outcomes, and show inspection outcomes while diagnosing defects . For me, this course is one of the clearest examples of how I translate teaching philosophy into practice, because it allows me to combine self-directed learning, fieldwork, collaborative inquiry, technical reporting, critique, and presentation within one coherent learning journey.
Design intention
This course is designed to move students beyond learning about building defects in abstract terms. My intention is to help them understand how and why defects happen, how they are investigated, and how they are communicated professionally through inspection and reporting. More importantly, I want students to experience building pathology as a field of inquiry that connects material behaviour, field evidence, diagnosis, and professional judgement.
BIB2014 is also a course in which I can bring together many of the teaching and learning principles that matter to me: self-directed learning, authentic field-based inquiry, collaborative investigation, scaffolded assessment, reflective practice, and structured opportunities for feedback and improvement. In that sense, it represents my teaching at its best because it allows me to put into practice the learning experience I want to design and deliver, taking into account what I have learned about good higher education teaching.
Assessment design
The course uses two very different but complementary continuous assessment tasks.
Coursework 1: Self-directed learning reflections
Coursework 2: Group scientific report, presentation, and poster
CW1 is an individual task worth 10%, based on the FutureLearn course Building Pathology: The Science Behind Why Buildings Fail. Students complete the online course, keep a weekly reflection journal using the DEAL model, contribute to discussions on the course platform, generate questions for the educator, and include an AI usage log .
I chose this approach for two reasons. First, the MOOC itself is one that I designed and published, so it gives students access to a high-quality foundation that aligns closely with the course. Second, I want students to recognise that learning in their field does not begin and end in the classroom. I want them to see that online courses can be part of lifelong learning in their area of professional specialisation. The MOOC allows them to study at their own pace while building the conceptual foundation needed before they come into class.
CW2 is a group assessment worth 30%, built around a scientific investigation of selected building defects. Students work in groups of five and produce a scientific report, an oral presentation, and an A2 poster, with the task mapped to CLO-2 and CLO-3 . They choose one building material and study how it fails across different Malaysian development periods using at least 10 real cases, supported by site visits, field evidence, and instrument-based readings .
This is a strongly authentic task. Students are expected to build a direct chain from observation to measurement, from measurement to mechanism, and from mechanism to recommendation . The work is staged across the semester through topic registration, fieldwork, instrumentation planning, studio critique, poster drafting, final submission, and gallery walk presentation . In this way, the coursework is not detached from the teaching. It is scaffolded by it.
How the teaching works
The course is structured as a blend of collaborative learning workshops, fieldwork, and group discussion . The semester begins with a course introduction and assignment briefing, followed by several weeks of online self-directed learning on deterioration agents and material defects, then fieldwork, then later contact sessions on defects in floors, walls, roofs, and investigation protocols, before moving into interim critique, further fieldwork, and final presentation and submission .
This sequence is deliberate. I do not design the course as a simple progression of weekly content coverage. Instead, I design it as a learning journey in which conceptual foundations, self-directed exploration, site-based investigation, workshop-style contact sessions, critique, and presentation all contribute to the development of professional understanding. The course is therefore built not only around what students should know, but around what they should be able to examine, interpret, diagnose, and communicate.
What this case study shows about my teaching
BIB2014 is a strong example of my teaching because it shows how I combine self-directed learning, authentic assessment, collaborative inquiry, and scaffolded feedback into one coherent course design. It demonstrates that I do not see learning as the delivery of information followed by a disconnected assignment. Instead, I design the course so that students progressively build understanding, apply it in authentic contexts, receive critique, refine their work, and communicate their findings in professional forms.
It also shows the kind of learning experience I want students to have. I want them to be challenged, to take ownership, to work collaboratively, to think carefully, and to experience the discipline as something intellectually serious and professionally meaningful. BIB2014 gives me a course structure through which that can happen.